Blue Shorts
by Keaalu
Summary: G1-ish, "Blue AU"-based short bits of fluff. Mostly plotless, Seekery, sparkling-y bits of nonsense.
1. The Dotted Plague

**A/N:** Just a silly bit of fluff to pass the time while I drag my heels and get the next chapter of "Warped" finished. :) (Just as I get over ONE cold, I get ANOTHER one. D'oh.)

Sliight spoilers. Those of you who watch my LiveJournal have probably seen this already, but I figured I might as well share it here too. ;) I have a couple more shorts to upload later.

This is set towards the end of "Warped". Jazz (for once) hasn't been roped into spark-sitting, but _still_ gets caught up in the twins' mayhem.

* * *

The Dot Plague?

Midmorning on the _Ark_, and Skywarp's twins were playing a very high-speed game of "chase" down the corridors – at least, it was either that or how-many-can-we-trip-over-today, and no-one seemed willing to openly label it as either. The exact nature of the game seemed fairly abstract – there was no chaser, and no chased, as such, they seemed to be trying to catch each other and avoid being caught in equal amounts, and showing a fairly impressive display of teleport accuracy in the process, pouncing and vanishing while the bewildered twin was still recovering his or her wits.

"Woo, slow down you two," Jazz laughed, scooping Footloose up as she passed him in the rec-room doorway; Slipstream had already dived for cover behind the nearest couch. "What are you doing?"

Footloose made a frustrated noise and wriggled in his arms. "Jas, no fair! Lemmego!"

Slipstream peeked out, saw she was captured, grinned, teleported up to Jazz's shoulder and dramatically stuck a small round blue sticker to his sister's nose, then was gone.

"Ja-as!" Footloose squealed her frustration, involuntarily flickering her blinkers. "Making me _loo-ose_!"

Jazz quirked a brow, realising that the little femme was already covered in bright blue dots, mostly over her back and arms – and in her hands, she clutched a sheet of similar stickers, except these were a lurid shade of fluorescent pink. _Aha_. So, that explained the game. Stick labels to your twin without getting labels on you in return. It was frankly quite amazing it hadn't turned into a sticky-dot-covered wrestling match, yet.

"Where'd you two troublemakers get them from?" Jazz wondered, amusedly.

Footloose gave him a guileless look. "Spike gave."

"Ri-ight. Just like he 'gave' you that glue you used to stick Screamer's data-pad to his desk two days ago?"

She giggled at his exaggeratedly-suspicious tone of voice, and headbutted his chest. "Down now please Jas?"

"Why, so you can coat more things in pink stickers?"

"Not 'more things', only Seem." She gave him her biggest, widest-eyed most appealing look.

"All right." He caved in and lowered her to the floor, but kept hold of her arms, just for now. "If I find spots anywhere else, I'll know who to tell the Police to arrest for graffiti, won't I?"

Footloose sucked her fingers. "Ooh."

He leaned closer and asked, more conspiratorially; "So who's winning?"

She gave him a sneaky smile and patted her chest.

It was only once she'd finally vanished to find her twin that Jazz realised the backs of his arms had been coated in a sneaky layer of pink dots.


	2. A Sticky Situation

**A/N: **This is set prior to Warp's arrival, when Footloose's origin was still (mostly) unidentified. :shifty eyes: She has her sire's knack for trouble.

Yes, this is an older story, I've had it on my LiveJournal for a while, but I decided I may as well upload it. :)

* * *

A Sticky Situation

Footloose was bored. Jas was busy, and so was Atchet and Ausep, and Septor was doing something delicate that clumsy sparklings couldn't help out with, so she'd been told to go with Spike, and he'd look after her until her relatives weren't busy any more.

Spike was still a source of mixed curiosity and anxiety to her. Curiosity, because he was warm and squashy and so delicate he had to cover his exterior plating with layers of fabric, and he had a funny looking head, covered in a fuzz of soft tendrils. Anxiety because, well… he was a _hooming_, and hoomings were tricky creatures not to be trusted! She knew Jas said he was a friend, and she was _trying_ to think of him as a friend so Jas would be happy, but it was tricky.

…and now she was bored, because he'd had to refuel himself, and was now engaged in a very important discussion with another hooming, pressing buttons on a crude telecommunications device called a 'lap top'. (Which didn't make much sense because it was on a _table_ top, not a lap. But these hoomings didn't make a whole lot of sense at the best of times, so she let it slide.)

She settled on finding her own amusement. Spike hadn't said she couldn't go investigating, and this 'kitchen' they were in was a small, hooming-sized room in a building just around the corner from the main _Ark_… and it was full of cupboards full of strange hooming stuff. He'd laughed and amusedly corrected her when she'd put a pan for sauces on her head and informed him "it hat!", but he was otherwise kind of uninterested. Which meant – unfortunately – she'd been left entirely to her own devices…

The afternoon wore on and she rapidly ran out of low cupboards to be curious about and pull all the stuff out of. The higher cupboards were an irresistible draw… Compared to a _human_ sparkling of an equivalent emotional development, Footloose was big. Compared to _Spike_, however, she was still too small to easily reach the cupboards above the worktop. And she knew _they_ contained _fuels_, because Spike had opened it up and taken out jars of energon to make his 'lunch' out of.

Ordinarily, she wasn't the sort to go around sampling alien fuels, regardless how depleted she was. If there wasn't any energon, she'd go and tuck herself into a corner where she wouldn't get tripped over (she'd tripped Spotweld a few times and he was _heavy_), preferably snuggling with her twin, and pull off the grid for a while. Buut… she was getting low, and she'd seen Spike refuelling on things in the cupboards, though, so she figured it would be all right.

First of all, how to get on the worktop. It was too high to climb up, but… she didn't need to scramble around like some useless groundling! She wrinkled her nose and performed a very quick, almost automatic triangulation, then teleported.

She inspected the worktop first of all. At one end was that strange spongey block that Spike had used to carry the fuel – was it like an energon cube? Didn't really look much like the familiar crystal lattice, it looked more like an opaque foam. She gave it a poke, and her dark finger smushed easily into the soft brown surface. Of course, he'd not put the energon _into_ the stuff, but had used the serrated tool to slice a bit off the end and then put the fuel _onto_ it. She pinched her finger and thumb together and brought a small lump away, and examined it carefully with the internal diagnostic plates in her mouth… nope, didn't like it. Insoluble and inedible. Not a fuel. She _peh!_ed and egested the mauled lump of carrier wafer back onto the sideboard.

She opened the cupboard, and was greeted by a dazzling array of alien fuels that left her momentarily awed. Energon didn't come in all _these_ colours! There was red, and yellow, and pale brown, and speckly and mottled and… There was surely _something_ good for sparklings, in here!

In the front on the bottom shelf was the jar Spike had used. She lifted it out, carefully, her soft finger-pads easily grasping the shiny glass; it was wrapped most of the way with a matt label, covered in illegible Suishy writing. (Slipstream would probably have been able to interpret this, but he wasn't here.) The lid took a little more work to remove, until she worked out it _twisted_ off.

She dabbed a finger into the jar and scooped the strange brownish fuel up on her fingertip. Very odd stuff. Wasn't really solid _or _liquid. It was full of lumps, had a strange oily/granular texture, but it was stiff, and paste-like, and stuck to her fingers when she rubbed it between them. Stuck to her analytical plates, too, when she examined it a little more closely with her mouth. Huh. She made _blagh_-faces and tried to wipe her tongue against her forearm, and just spread the paste a little further. This wasn't much good as a fuel! How could Spike utilise it?

What else was there…? Maybe this bottle of reddish gelatinous substance was energon? It was the right colour, nearly. Just… _thicker_, and full of little black speckles. Concentrated energon went opalescent, not red. But then this was Suishie fuel, maybe it worked differently. She unscrewed the lid, and sampled it…

0o0o0o0o0

A few minutes inattention was all it took. One minute and Spike was engrossed in busily discussing something inane over the Instant Messenger with Carly, the next minute and there was a horrible, wet, broken-sounding _clok _from behind that made him all but leap out of his skin.

He turned fully expecting to find a broken robobaby, to instead find a puddle of honey and glass spreading slowly across the floor, leaving saucepans and teacups standing in it like islands, and a curious sparkling up on the countertop, busily going through the cupboard and sampling everything she could get the lid off.

"Aw, _crap_!" Spike leaped to his feet so fast that the chair went flying.

Footloose looked up, startled, one tiny black hand still in her mouth.

"What are you doing? You shouldn't even be up there!" Spike staggered over a chairleg and clutched for the sticky infant.

Footloose made an _urp _sound and turned very slightly, and-

-vanished completely. There was a low _slap_ as air molecules collapsed back into the sparkling-sized gap left in spacetime.

Spike didn't have long to ponder the sparkling's abrupt disappearing act. Just about every single jar along the bottom shelf had been opened and investigated, there were sticky fingermarks all over the shelves, the tiles, the jars, the packets, the cooking utensils, and there were little pools of liquid slowly running into each other where bottles had tipped over, and were slowly oozing their contents across the sideboard.

"Aw, _man_," he ran his fingers up into his hair and stared at the sticky cupboards. "What a _mess_. Someone's gonna have my _hide_ for this…"

0o0o0o0o0

There was a muffled little _slup_ of sound in the background, and Forceps was already turning towards the source when it announced its presence in the infirmary as noisily as ever. Footloose – still wearing her saucepan hat – looked like she'd been dunked in a vat of glucose syrup, then rolled in a pillow factory, covered as she was in smears and fluff and stickiness. "Ausep!" she greeted, arms up for a hug.

Forceps looked down, and frowned, startled, unconsciously recoiling from the little bundle of unidentifiable goop. "What _have_ you been up to, Button?" she wondered, out loud, backing away from the sticky dervish that chased her ankles.

"Dam!" Footloose waved sticky fingers.

"Damn? Where did you hear language like _that_, young lady?"

"Dzam," Footloose tried again, and planted the sticky palm against Forceps' thigh as if by way of explanation. "Saw Spike make refuel, and had Suishie en'gon!"

" _Jam_?" Forceps realised, and wasn't sure if she should laugh or groan at realising what must have been happening. "Oh, Button, it doesn't work like that," she scolded, affectionately, picking the little femme up off the floor and setting her onto an examination bench. "You go ingesting Squishy energon, and you'll glue all your pumps up."

"But-… en'gon!" Footloose was already making _bleh_ faces, however, and wiping her tongue against her hands, apparently having discovered for herself why jam didn't make good eating for sparklings. "…aeulh. Sticky!"

"And you'll be all sticky inside as well, now…" The surgeon turned briefly to her host's medic, and asked, quietly; "got any very mild sedatives that'd be suitable for the little one without putting her right into stasis?"

"You think sedating her is the way to go?" Ratchet gave her a look.

"Take it from me, she's not going to sit still for us to get a scope down," Forceps glared affectionately down at her charge, holding her at arms length in a vain attempt to avoid spreading the stickiness any further. "Even Auntie Sepp can't get you to sit still if it's to do with nasty medicine, can she?"

Footloose made more _blaugh_ noises and wiggled, trying hard to wipe her face against Forceps but just too far away. "Nasty, nasty," she complained, squirming. "No more sticky, Ausep! Make clean."

"Well, we're going to let you have a little sleep so we can do it properly, all right?"

Footloose looked between the two pairs of optics watching her, and sucked on her sticky fingers, but nodded, and was soon nicely floppy and sedated.

…It was quite an eye-opener to see exactly what some sparklings were willing to attempt to refuel on, as they cleaned jam, ketchup, cooking oil, peanut butter, dry rice, mustard, rosemary, curry paste, and raisins (and those were just the _identifiable_ condiments) out of the sedated infant's main intakes.

"I think… I shall be having words with her babysitter," Ratchet commented, thoughtfully, once the tubes were finally clean and de-stickied, and they closed the plating carefully back up. "Namely, explaining exactly _what_ 'watch she doesn't get into trouble' means."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Forceps agreed, dryly, gently gathering Footloose up off the berth. "So. No more intaking human 'energon', eh, Button?"

"No more," Footloose agreed, still drowsy from the sedation, curled against her aunt's chest and clicked quietly. "Sticky mess."

"Sticky mess indeed!"


	3. Making Art

**A/N: **More fluff. These things are hopping about in the timeline all over the place, this one's set midways through Warped.

* * *

Make Art for Day!

Skywarp had his thrustered heels propped up on the table, rocking his chair back on two legs, half-watching Starscream fiddling around with the focussing array he'd 'liberated' from one of Ironhide's stockpile of weapons. Autobot tech obviously wasn't precise enough. Wasn't as if Skywarp was going to argue – the quicker he got his cannons back on his arms, the better.

He glanced down at a little tug on his trailing fingers to find Footloose gazing up at him. "Hello, Trouble," he greeted, with a lopsided grin, offering his palm. "Done making a mess?"

"Not make mess, make _art_," she argued, settling into his hand and letting him lift her up.

"Oh, so _that's_ what they're calling it these days, huh?" He gave her a nose-wrinkled look. "Looks like there's more art on _you_ than there is on your piece of paper."

"Jas say fun to make painting!" she explained, earnestly, settling into her usual spot in the crook of his elbow.

"Does Jazz say it's fun to make bath as well? Because I'm gonna be shipping you off to the washracks, in a minute, you painty little bundle of spares…"

Footloose made _bleaugh _faces. "No bath," she complained, surreptitiously trying to wipe dried blue paint off her fingers against his chassis. "Make art for Day," she explained, handing over the object she was clutching in both hands. It was a biggish piece of card, to the sparkling, although in the Seeker's large hands it was more like a postcard.

Skywarp grinned in spite of himself. On the left of the page was a carefully painted stick-figure in black and purple, with little blue lines under the stick-Seeker's feet apparently indicating flight. "I think I recognise that handsome guy on the left."

Footloose giggled and headbutted his chest. "Is Day!" she explained.

"And these must be your uncles, right?" He pointed a large finger carefully at the two colourful triangles in the bottom of the picture.

"Is Dack and Sta'zim," she agreed.

"So what's the yellow thing in the corner? Some kinda squished bug?"

"Is sun! And that am clouds."

"…they have faces, these days?"

"…yes?" She gave him a silly look and put her fingers into her mouth.

"Tch!" He pinged her antennae and made her giggle. "So where's Ama, eh?"

"Is on ground. Doesn't like to make fly, silly!"

"Ah, oh course. Silly me." He glanced down at her. "So where are _you_, on here?"

"Um."

"You didn't forget _you_, did you, Button?"

She thought for a moment or two before dabbing her fingertip down on his chest. "Am in here. In pilot seat!"

"Good save," he chuckled, as she butted her small helm up into his cupped palm and rattled a purr. "…just don't go thinking this'll get you off having a bath!"


	4. Storm

**A/N:** _Very _short little bit of fluff. I wrote this for Jill (JillDragon here on ) who rightly pointed out that the poor Coneheads get no love. :aww:

* * *

Over the course of an average vorn, there were not many moments when Dirge got the chance to just go out and _enjoy_ himself.

If he wasn't depressed at the state of the faction, then he was depressed at how little success they'd had lately, and if he wasn't depressed at _that_, then he was just depressed, period. His engines and his electrical field had weird disharmonies that hade other machines uncomfortable – himself included – and having everyone choose to avoid him didn't exactly promote happy relationships.

It wasn't something he talked to his wingmates about – probably not something they'd even bother to attempt to _understand_, if he was honest – but he longed for these days of poor weather and adverse flying conditions. So what if the lightning scrambled his positioning array, the roaring song of the storm left him momentarily deaf? The static in the air was strong enough to blot out the discordance that made his spark uncomfortable in his chassis, and for once he could just get out there and enjoy flying. No stupid Megatron, no stupid plans to follow, no stupid Starscream to mess it all up, and no wingmates continually catcalling across their private frequency, lambasting his hearing with rubbish he didn't want to have to listen to. Right now, it was just him and the thunderclouds, and mile upon mile of wild, beautiful sky.

Thunder rolled close by, and St Elmo's fire rippled along his wings. It lit him up with a brilliant lilac corona, and suddenly he wasn't _just_ the "gloomy third one only there to make up the numbers", he was a powerful, beautiful creature made of pure light and energy.

Dirge felt the rain lash along his sleek fuselage, and... laughed.


	5. Study is Overrated

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...except where they're obviously OCs, and then they're mine, ha.)

**A/N: **Sorry, did someone say these are supposed to have plots? ::must try harder::

This fell out of my pen after a particularly trying on-call, one evening, when every time I tried to go home... something else would appear, JUST to heckle me. Okay, so the only similarity between the two is Warp's constant pain-in-the-ass-ery, but pfft. THE THOUGHT IS WHAT COUNTS.

I _could_ apologise for the shameless, Sue-ly fluff, but I won't. ^_^ I had to suffer it, sooo I guess you can just all join in my pain? It could be worse; Warp _actually_ wanted me to elaborate on the "alternate uses for the fluff" but I've banned him from talking to me about that for a while.

* * *

"**Study is overrated"**

_So… Quayside is improving, but the overall rates are only going down slowly. _Pulsar chewed thoughtfully on the end of her stylus, studying the little board of figures. _Which means the crime is just… moving to different areas? Which areas? And _that_ means-_

A big dark abstract shape blotted out the light from the stand-alone lamp in front of where she sat.

…_Great._

"Come on, budge up, Squeaks." A familiar voice instructed. "I wanna park my aft."

Pulsar glared up at her visitor, but obediently moved up. "It's not like we've got a dearth of seating, Skywarp."

"Yeah, but they're all empty." Skywarp dropped his bulk onto the couch with enough wilful abandon to make all the cushions (and an alarmed policebot) bounce dramatically. "This is the only one you're sat on."

"That makes a difference?"

"Well, duh. I can't _molest _you from way over there."

She gave him an elbow in the midsection as he got himself comfortable. "I'm _trying_ to study, if you hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, I know." He made a face and rubbed his flank, where the bike had left a new little silvery paint transfer. "Study is overrated." He sprawled out dramatically, almost knocking her clean off the couch with his wings.

"Like _you'd_ know." Pulsar recovered her poise without too much loss of dignity, and propped herself on an elbow. "When have you _ever_ studied, in your _entire life_?"

"Pssh. To quote my former fellow Con? Sentiment: unchanged." He flicked her antennae, and added, airily; "I studied at the university of life."

Pulsar couldn't help the little bark of laughter that escaped her vocaliser. "You failed that too, huh?"

"Oh, ha." He jabbed stiffened fingers at her midsection, and snerked as she twisted out of reach. "I might not be as brainy as Screamer, but at least I can _use_ what I know, Smart-Aft. What are you reading, anyway?"

Before she could answer, a large purple hand dropped into her field of view and carefully manoeuvred the databoard so its owner could see the screen. Pulsar made a point to _sigh_ exaggeratedly, but let him scrutinise the display. "I thought you weren't interested."

"You shouldn't confuse being nosey with genuine interest. I just wanna look." He peered more closely. "I mean, it could be some juicy gossip I can bribe Whisper with." He wrinkled his nose, disappointedly. "Ugh. Crime stats." He relinquished his hold on it. "What are you reading _that_ for?"

"Well, I might not _want_ to be a patrol sergeant for the rest of my life." She tried to concentrate on the words on the screen again, using her stylus to append notes to the section she wanted to research further. "I'm just… keeping my options open. Professional development, and what have you – not that you'd know much about _that_."

"Pssh. Please forgive me for not wanting to be some geeky little Autodork."

Pulsar stuck out her tongue and countered with; "You just know you wouldn't be able to cope with all the brainwork, _Skydork_."

Blissful quiet reigned for maybe half a breem. Skywarp hooked his thrusters up on the low table in front and took refuge in a flask of multiple-filtered energon, looking like he was perhaps going to attempt to go dormant and get some recharge, and Pulsar decided it was probably safe to tuck herself more comfortably against him and get back to her reading-

A sharp, not-quite-painful _tweak _on the tip of the longest of her antennae made her jump. "Skywarp," she scolded, automatically. "Quit that."

"What?" He sounded genuinely hurt at the accusation. "What makes you think that was _me_?"

"Because it usually _is_ you."

He muttered something incomprehensible into his flask, but settled back down.

After a second or two, where she began to think maybe it was just a system spike and she _had_ in fact imagined it (and prooobably should feel bad for yelling at him), there came another – slightly less hard, but for slightly longer, accompanied by a very subtle almost-purr from the languid Seeker.

Two and two came together to make four. "…are you _biting_ my aerials, Skywarp?"

"Tch! No," he snorted, as though it were the most ludicrous thing he'd heard all orn, then added; "I'm _nibbling_ them."

Slightly blindsided, all she could do for a full second or two was stare at the far wall. At last, her voice decided to return. "All right, allow me to rephrase that. _Why_ are you nibbling my aerials?"

He gave another of those funny _why-are-you-asking-silly-questions_ sort of chuckles. "Because they're there?" A beat of silence passed, for dramatic effect, and when he spoke again, his voice was a little louder, a little closer. "And they're near my mouth?" Another little silence. "And I'm bored?" This time, his lips had got close enough that she could actually feel them stirring the air as he spoke, softly, right next to her audio; "you'd enjoy it if you weren't, ah..." Pause, little snerk. "...'_studying'_."

The small femme pursed her lips, irritably, and shot him a sidelong glare. "Well I'm not playing your game, you useless fragger." It took considerable effort, but she successfully ignored the thoughtful _strum _of his fingers down her right sensory array, staring hard at her datapad. "It wouldn't kill you to wait for me to finish what I'm doing, for once."

"And where's the fun in that? C'mon, your name isn't Screamer, you can work _at_ work. This is like, 'evening off'."

She could feel the subtle movement of warm air from his cranial vents as he leaned closer. "Can't you find someone else to heckle, for once?"

"Nah." His other hand came to rest carefully over the alarm blinker on the other side of her head. "Maybe I should do some study too. Like... how many alternate uses can we find for that _fluff_ you keep insisting on wearing." He vented chilly air over her scarf and made the ends flutter.

She rolled her eyes, tolerating his manhandling with an increasing impatience. _One more breem, and I'll sock him in the faceplates._ "I _will_ use my siren on you if you don't stop being a pest, and putting your hands over my audios won't help you _in the slightest_."

"Oh, pssh." He tightened his grasp a little and forced her to roll her head forwards.

"I swear, if you don't _frag _off, I-..._ahh_-" The protests building in her vocaliser died in a helpless little gurgle of pleasure as he carefully _kissed_ the nape of her neck. The chilly trace of energon left on his lips made the sensors laminated into her armour _tingle_, and electrifying feedback shot straight down her main motor complex, like a chrome-plated icicle. Her fingers convulsed open, involuntarily, casting her stylus to the floor, where it rolled somewhere inaccessible under one of the other chairs. "P-primus-..."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that." His _smirk_ was so obvious, it was almost audible.

She croaked something wordless, unable to divert the processing power to her vocaliser. "S-so-... study _what_...?" she managed, at last.

"Energy efficiency." His voice descended into a murmur, his lips almost touching her audios. "You've got a full tank, right? How about I see how many times I can get you to overload before you need to refuel." He applied his denta to the side of her throat, carefully drew them across the soft grey elastomeric surface, mouthing his way down to her shoulder. "Then I can, ah, 'audit' my findings later, to see if your energy handling's improved any."

"You're such a glitch," she scolded, helplessly, unable to keep from trembling. There was absolutely no way she was going to hide her stuttering fans and purring engine from him now.

"I know. And I'm gonna _keep_ being a glitch until you put that pad away, Dorkface." One big hand closed on both her wrists, casually, and the other carefully plucked the polycarbonate from her unresisting fingers.

OK, she conceded, finally giving up any effort to keep working in the face of insurmountable odds. Maybe studying _was_ overrated…


End file.
